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Barroso sets course for revision of EU treaties

José Manuel Barroso, the president of the European Commission, has launched an all-out campaign for treaty reform of the European Union’s existing structures.

He told the European Parliament yesterday that the EU had to “leave [its] comfort zone” in order to create “a deep and genuine economic union, based on political union”.

Barroso said it would take a new treaty for the EU to transform itself into a “federation of nation states”.

Barroso outlined a three-step programme, starting with immediate measures to stabilise the eurozone and to stimulate growth. He cited as an example the measures toward a banking union proposed today. Later this autumn the Commission is to make proposals for the second stage – a blueprint for “a deep and genuine economic and monetary union” within the limits of the Lisbon treaty. Barroso provided no specifics on this.

The third stage, he said, was a “federation of nation states”. “Let’s not be afraid of the word,” Barroso told MEPs in Strasbourg. “Today, I call for a federation of nation states. Not a superstate.”

“Before the next European Parliament elections in 2014, the Commission will present its outline for the shape of the future European Union. And we will put forward explicit ideas for treaty change in time for a debate.” He said that these proposals would allow the EU to move ambitiously into new territory.

The Commission president (pictured above) laid out his plans in his state of the Union address to the Parliament meeting in Strasbourg yesterday (12 September). He said that the need for economic union had become evident with the current economic and financial crisis. But, he warned, debate about treaty change “must not distract us from doing what can and must be done already today”.

Andrew Duff, a British Liberal MEP who leads the Union of European Federalists, said that Barroso’s speech signalled “a major constitutional shift, involving all EU institutions”.

But other MEPs were less happy with Barroso’s language. Some Socialists and Liberals protested that the EU is already a federation of nation states, and said that the EU needed to transcend the limitations of that model through even deeper integration.

Guy Verhofstadt, the leader of the group of Liberals and Democrats in the Parliament, said: “No, no, no, no federation of nation states. That’s more of the same. That’s more of what we have already. That’s the European Council…who are incapable of solving this crisis.”

He said: “What we need for Europe is not a federation of nation states, it’s a federal union of the European citizens.”

Jo Leinen, a centre-left German MEP, backed Verhofstadt’s call for a “federal union of citizens” and said that this “must be achieved with a true European democracy, with European political parties and more competences for the European Parliament”.

British Conservatives, by contrast, warned that Barroso’s language might deepen divisions between the member states. “We wish to maintain the integrity of the single market and to make sure your proposals don’t damage that market,” said Martin Callanan, leader of the European Conservatives and Reformists group.

Julie Girling, a British MEP from the ECR group, said if such wide-ranging change is envisaged and treaty amendments are involved, “that’s a major issue”. She insisted that the people of Europe would need to be given a say. “That should be via proper referendums.”

Barroso told MEPs not to get entangled in semantic discussions about the exact meaning of the “federal path” outlined in his speech. “We need to respond to issues that are extremely serious and urgent now, even before we get the necessary revision of the current treaties,” he said. “So this is our way and this is the way the Commission will pursue with determination.”